As of the First of December Milwaukee property owners owe a whopping $60,527,762 in delinquent property taxes. Yes $60 million dollars. This amount does not include the interest and penalties that are due.

Forty one percent are owner occupants. 2575 of balances are greater than $5,000. Some have taxes due back to 2000, yes eleven years of back taxes.

In addition to possibly increasing the middle income tax burden, some of the proposed changes may cause real estate values to fall up to 15%.

The effect will most likely hit neighborhoods with the highest rates of owner occupancy the hardest.

This is similar to how Milwaukee short changed owner occupants when they shifted various costs from property taxes to the water bill. By that move a few hundred dollars that were deductible as property taxes simply became a nondeductible out of pocket expense.

On the bottom of the left hand panel click on “Ask the Assessor’s Office.” Then entire the name of the entity which owns the parcel, if different than your own name.Enter the address of the property, your email address, and in the “Question” box type “please send me an assessment appeal form.” You will get the form back via email, usually within one day.

I recommend all owners who feel their assessed values are above what they could sell today for the assessed value to file a timely objection. Continue reading »

Could you sell your property today for cash at the current assessed value? If not then you should consider appealing your assessment.

“An exercise in futility!” you scream, knowing the Board of Review is generally a rubber stamp for the Assessor’s Office. In general that may be the case. However our attorney and a few other smart lawyers believe the current MIlwaukee assessment process may be flawed as the Assessor refuses to factor the impact on values of the massive number of foreclosure, defaults and short sales in many neighborhoods. This raises the potential for a class action suit to remediate an intentionally flawed process. Continue reading »

Disclaimer

I am "just a landlord," NOT an attorney or accountant. If you need legal advice, tax advice or have appendicitis, don’t rely on something you read on the internet and do it yourself. Rather, hire a competent professional.